


Survival of the Fittest

by satellitescales



Category: Red Rising Series - Pierce Brown
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:54:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27744067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/satellitescales/pseuds/satellitescales
Summary: A closer look into the life of Adrius au Augustus.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 6





	Survival of the Fittest

**Author's Note:**

> CONTENT WARNINGS:  
> Suicide mention, implied child abuse, animal death mention, miscarriage mention, also canon-typical violence. None of these are huge plot points but they are in the text.  
> My [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/65vgnIMXKrK127Me2Sk8Oz?si=8Izv-5NdRM2IM262dtR-5A) for this fic

I think this is the worst thing to happen to me. The only person who treated me like I mattered is gone. I am alone and this house is so _cold._ The walls are taller, corners darker, the lion of my family’s crest is too big and frightening where it once seemed protective. The marble floor is freezing where I sit, knees to my chest, arms wrapped around myself like the way Mother used to hold me.

Those last few months keep replaying in my head. The tears, the silence, the empty stares as if she were already dead. Something was wrong. Something was terribly, horribly wrong and it was so obvious something was wrong that it drove me half mad wondering what it was. Though, after today, I do not need to wonder. Father told me why.

He pulled me aside earlier. My siblings went ahead to the funeral in the yard while Father and I stayed behind. “Would you stop blathering on like that?” He said, roughly scraping the tears from my face, “This all started with you. Ever since you, she has been . . . had been . . .” He trailed off, shook his head, and moved on, conversation forgotten.

I did not forget.

While he joined the others outside I stayed in here. In this cavernous house with its uncaring walls and ancient, indifferent foundation, his words anchored to my thoughts. _It was my fault._ What did I do? I don’t recall saying or doing anything wrong, but then, how reliable is a child’s memory?

I loved her so much. Where Father is always cold and Virginia and Claudius are always away, she was there. She was patient and warm and never treated me differently for being smaller than the other kids and having trouble making friends. Then was that the problem? I was too clingy? Too _wrong?_ Was she pitying me the entire time, while deeply she resented me the same way Father does? I did something, I had to have _done something_ . She always seemed so happy and then one day she simply _wasn’t_. Now she’s gone.

She is gone and she’s not coming back.

It feels as if my heart is being dragged to the core of the planet, hitting each rib on the way down. Who do I have if not her? Who am I if not her son?

A door opens somewhere. Wind floats in with the hearty stink of Martian soil and the chatter of voices from the funeral. The door closes and a pair of little feet _click click click_ against the tile floor. I draw closer in on myself, holding the sob in my throat, watching from beneath the stairs. Virginia peers around the corner, flowers in her hair, fingers knotted in the black fabric of her dress. She stands there for a moment, head tilted, watching me, before she pads over to the stairs and crawls underneath to sit with me.

A swell of emotion makes me want to shove her away, stomp up to our room, and lock the door. I don’t want to be seen like this—red-faced and broken, but I don’t know if I could handle being alone any longer. She pulls a flower from her golden hair and sets it on my knee.

“I miss her too,” She says, frowning at a crack in the floor. “She loved us a lot, you know.”

“But she’s gone.”

“Well _I’m_ still here. And I’m never leaving,” Her face brightens with a grin, “You’re stuck with me. It’s us against the world.”

* * *

He is coming. We are on opposite sides of the house. I don’t know how he heard me, but he’s coming; I hear his boots on the stairs. I know what happens next. This will end the same way it has for weeks, yet I cannot stop crying. It all comes spilling out. Mother is gone, Claudius was not once cared for me, and Virginia, despite her promises, always finds someone else to play with. I am left alone with the only person who despises me more than I have come to despite myself.

He is stomping down the hall. He comes to a stop at the door. The knob turns, the door opens, and he stands in the frame for a long, agonizing moment, glaring down at me as if surprised I am even still here. I try to make myself smaller on the bed. I know it won’t help but I do it anyway. He makes his way over to the bed and sits at the foot, as far from me as possible. Not once do his eyes leave me. I want to claw my skin off so he won’t be able to hurt me anymore.

But he doesn’t hit me. He closes his eyes for a long, laborious moment, and asks me if I know of the Exposure.

I do.

Then he starts telling a story, and my heart begins to sink. 

The Board didn’t want to do it, they said it wasn’t necessary. He tells me this as my tears are replaced with something more quick and primal. The hole in my heart once crowded with grief now inhabited by a small, terrified creature trapped in the headlights.

“ _The Board_ said,” He says it with so much dripping malice that he doesn’t know what to do with it and has to take a short pause. “The Board said Virginia and you were both _fine_. But what do they know? They do not possess the same authority a Father has over his son.”

He ordered an Exposure for me. Because I looked _weak_ , because I was smaller than Claudius. Three days I was out on that rock. I don’t even remember it.

It’s as if a fork is being dragged through my brain. I can’t think straight. His words repeat over and over again in my head. _He tried to kill me. He wanted me dead. He tried to kill me._ It only stretches the horror out, makes it harder to rationalize. I’m trying to be analytical and process this with some sensibility but it drowns out my thoughts.

“I was proven wrong then,” He’s saying down to me. I barely hear over the scraping of air through my hoarse throat, the pounding of my own heart. “I thought you were not fit to be Gold. Prove me wrong again.”

I am not breathing. Or, I am, but I don’t feel it. Air goes past my lungs but it does not fill me up. The blood moves too fast. My head spins. He continues to talk and talk and I’m knotting my hands in the bedsheets, biting through the meat of my tongue. Relentless and uncontrollable, the tears keep coming. I know he hates it when I cry but I cannot for the life of me stop bawling. It hurts and it hurts _so_ deeply. I am small and ruined in the shadow of his words.

“Oh stop,” He chides, “stop and look at yourself, Adrius. Your siblings wouldn’t put up such a pathetic show.”

I know it’s true. Neither of them would ever be reduced to this, which does nothing but confirm everything he told me. I am lesser, weaker, unfit for my own Color. He stays in the room with me for a few more minutes, watching, waiting to see if I will pick myself up from this. I don’t know _how_. I can’t hold onto a thought that isn’t the Exposure. Though even if I could I wouldn’t know what to do with my life after this. Eventually, he stands, leaves the room, and slams the door, unaffected. The noise is like a hammer to my brain. I bite my tongue to keep from bursting into tears yet again.

* * *

To an outside observer, it would appear that Nero au Augustus has one son. Claudius goes to all the public events, hangs framed on every wall, appears on local news sites, tabloids, gossip circuits—he is _everywhere._ With Claudius the heir, my sister and I are mere obstacles in Father’s way. Two minor inconveniences he must feed and house and waste money on. Virginia has it better than I, because at least Father smiles around her. He has long since compartmentalized his grief for Mother and now will even go out into the yard with Virginia and the horses. They talk and laugh and get along as if it is the easiest thing in the worlds, while I watch from the other side of a window.

He may care for Virginia, but she is not the thing he _loves_ . That spot is reserved for his eldest son. _Exemplary Claudius, Unbreakable Claudius, Claudius the Heir to House Augustus_. I grow unbearably tired of hearing about him. Having a conversation in this house is impossible without it eventually drifting to his recent escapades or victories. I envy him and his Scar, his friends, the attention and affection that follows him wherever he goes. He absorbs all the love in Father’s heart like a parasite. My life would be vastly more fulfilling if he were out of it.

Luckily, I am not the only one who holds this sentiment. There are oh, so easy ways to get rid of him without dirtying my hands. After all, he is not entirely perfect. He is headstrong and jealous and proud, with a fast and dirty temper. He has enemies stronger and more dangerous than he, kept from putting him down by empty promises of peace and fickle truces.

How easy it would be to send it all crashing down.

* * *

Nero Interlude: Expressionless

It happens in slow motion. Every movement, each flicker of muscle, snap of razor. Boots squeal against the cobblestones. The crowd is silent, everyone holding their breaths in anticipation. This duel only ends one way—when one of them is dead. Already blood stains the stones, already both aegises are depleted, already Nero’s heart begins to sink.

The monster, Karnus au Bellona, is a blunt force object. He is relentless, even spitting blood and broken teeth. Nero would have felt a sense of pride seeing Claudius follow his teachings while Karnus throws his weight around like a back-alley brawler, if Claudius weren’t struggling to stand. Blood sheets off him. From no discernable wound, it just comes from _everywhere_. Mixing with sweat, painting red the shoes of onlookers. Imperator Tiberius watches like a hound about to be let loose. If the circumstances permitted, Nero would decapitate him then and there. The weight of the razor looped at his hip is crushing.

Nero knows it is over when Claudius looks to him, frantic. His eyes wide and pleading, fear of death dawning over his features. He seems almost incredulous, as if asking “ _Are you just going to let me die?_ ” This expression splits apart when Karnus surges forward and buries his razor in Claudius’ torso. He grunts, dipping to his knees. Blood bubbles out between his lips and he falls facedown to the ground. Karnus’ razor rips out with a wet sucking sound. Nero’s eldest son flounders in a growing pool of his own blood. Karnus just laughs.

He kicks aside the abandoned Augustus razor. It skitters across the stone, stopping at Nero’s feet. He stares at the red-stained handle, wondering how the goryhell it came to this. Karnus kneels by Claudius, whispering something quietly. Then he cups the back of Claudius’ head, big hands tangling in bloodied clumps of hair. He tilts back to Nero, smirking at his win.

Then he smashes Claudius’ skull on the cobblestones.

He keeps going until chunks of brain swirl with the blood and Claudius is unrecognizable. Like a rising sun, Karnus stands slowly to his feet, relishing in the raucous screams of his family. His hands are red up to the elbows.

Nero looks away, unable to bear any more. The crowd parts and little Virginia bursts through, wailing. _She wasn’t supposed to see this_. She wraps her arms around Nero’s waist, shivering and sobbing. Farther back, still standing with Pliny as instructed, is Adrius. He doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even cry. He only stands there, staring at the crushed mess Claudius used to be. The expression on his young face is one Nero has seen only once before. Virginia had come to him one morning, terrified. Adrius was out in the yard, she said, and something was terribly, terribly wrong with him.

At his request, Virginia stayed inside. Nero found Adrius sitting in the grass behind the lion pens. A hunting knife sat next to him. In front of him was a dead cub, flayed.

Adrius looks at Claudius the same way he looked at that lion.

* * *

There is a scab on her knee. Light gray bruises on the back of her hands, brambles in her hair, freckles across her nose. She smiles at me and I don’t understand why.

My twin and I are nothing alike. She is keen and quicksmiling, spending her days on the sunlit plains of the Telemanus estate. There I imagine she is the center of attention. I hear they ride horses and play games and walk along the lakebed. All the while I am inside with Father. Or, I am inside, Father is also inside. We rarely are ever _with_ each other, and when we are it is so he can lecture me or drop unsubtle hints about how poorly I scale with Claudius. He is finally dead and yet he still steals Father from me.

Virginia stands on the patio, a trail of muddy footprints following her. She carries a haphazard armful of pinecones and wildflowers, delighted at the chance to explore the home she has been so alienated from in the last year. _To keep the heirs safe_ , Father had said. Privately I wonder if he moved her just to take away the one remaining happiness I had.

She’s asking me to come outside and play with her. Her collection of verdure is complete, she only needs me to help her decide what to do with it. I hesitate a moment, trying to organize the words clogging my throat. She sees my expression and scowls.

“We never see each other any more,” She whines, nettles fluttering from her grasp to the ground, “You stay inside all day long and do _nothing_. You are allowed to have fun, you know.”

Doesn’t she see that I don’t have a choice? She is pretty and smart and loved by all. I have trouble getting Father to _look_ at me. I am indoors to _work_ , to study and train and develop. To become better than the unloveable thing I am now.

Father doesn’t like it when I waste time outside. He said I am too old for that, so I raise my chin. The same way Claudius used to before Karnus so expertly split his skull on the ground. When I politely tell her I can’t join her, her face falls. She scrutinizes me for an incomprehensible moment as if trying to read my thoughts. Then she offers me a smile, eyes crestfallen, and turns to patter down the terrace steps. A thin, magenta flower flutters to the stained wood.

* * *

It is that time of the year again, when he refuses even more so to acknowledge my existence. It is always worse around the anniversary of my mother’s death. On occasion it would get so bad he’d neglect my siblings as well, but the torment is always _directed_ at me. I was under the false impression that things would improve with time. Yet he still regards me with the impassive negligence one would reserve for a bothersome dog or a house servant.

His usual excuse is that he’s busy—or that _I_ should be busy and not bother him. When I was younger I thought it was because I was too young to engage. I genuinely, earnestly thought he was _ignoring me_ to protect me in some way. Now it’s less of a mild bother and more a trend. I’m used to it. There is even a sense of safety in this stagnation. Loneliness has followed me for so long I am beginning to find a Stockholm sense of comfort in it. This ache is my old friend. It has stuck with me when no one else has.

I only want to know why, that is all. Why does he despise me so? Why does my twin not deserve this treatment, yet I do? I have spent all thirteen years of my life vying for his sparse attention with so little in return.

The few times we get to talk, Virginia will look at me sadly and ask why I care so much about what he thinks. I never have the words to answer her. I don’t think she understands what it means to be the unfavored twin, to have to _work_ for the recognition of even my smallest achievements. Nothing I do is good enough for him, but everything she does is instantly commendable. It comes naturally to her.

I know Father is capable of being a parent. I know he has it in him to express fondness for his children, but it is never for me. I only ever see the disappointment, the rage, the dripping, corrosive hate at the fact that he and I could be related. I taint his image by existing.

I will show him he is wrong about me. I will prove to him somehow that I too can be something deserving of love. If I must, I will break myself apart to put myself back together as his son.

* * *

The frame shines with fresh polish. Gold corinthian swirls and leaves reflect the early morning light coming in through the bay window. I don’t find myself in here that often. It catches me off guard every time I see Claudius’ serene face staring down from that perfect, clean frame. It hangs on the wall adjacent Father’s desk, always in view. Nothing but a lump of oil paint on a canvas and yet he commands the room. The painting is as radiant as he once was, always surrounded by victories and a close group of friends. Good fortune once clung to him like Father now clings so desperately to his memory.

Beneath Claudius’ enormous portrait is a young lancer. The fact I am meeting him here, in the study, with Father, suggests he might soon become much more. Time slips between my fingers. 

Father sits across from me at his desk, so oblivious and cold. He’s rattling off the lancer’s achievements and statistical value. The lancer—a Scarred _nobody_ until my house picked him up—nods along. Pliny takes notes on his datapad.

All the while I am _right here_ . I stand so close to the desk I’m in the same place the last Indian emperor stood before he was beheaded. I feel a sliver of what he must have felt. The dread closing in. Time coming to a painful slow. I am right here and I have _always_ been right here, laboring and waiting and _working_ . All for him. And here he is with a random Academy graduate who has the same ambitious eyes and dry wit of my brother who has been dead for four years. This boy has not an ounce of Augustus in him and Father is offering to _house and train him on the estate_. He is inviting this dog-brained Gray masquerading as an Aureate into our home.

He is trying to replace Claudius. While I am right here.

Throughout this entire ordeal, Father barely spares a glance my way. His attention is always on the datapad or his _precious_ Leto. This _perfect, skilled lancer_. It’s all so contrived I want to tear my sigils out. He must be doing this on purpose, to toy with me, to show me that I am so useless as an heir he would rather take in a random lancer from an unknown house.

I seethe and burn, but for all my rage I nod along and murmur agreements because deep down I still hold out the hope that if I keep this up he will see something special in me. He will see the work I put into making myself something he could appreciate. I still have the Institute, though it’s years away. I can still prove myself.

As if he hears my vain internal monologue, Father glances up at me. Wordlessly, he shoos me out of the room.

* * *

Father’s remarriage was strange. The fact that he remarried at all was strange. Still, I do not understand how he of all people could fall in love, it doesn’t make sense to me.

The other oddity is the woman herself. She is anomalously benevolent. The first thing she did upon gaining my family name was assert to Virginia and I that she did not wish to impose, to which I ask: what Gold _doesn’t_ wish to impose?

True to her word, she did not impose. She assimilated nicely into the family—that is to say: without ending up decapitated—and now lives on the estate with Father and me. There is nothing necessarily bad about her, though she has the silent yet obnoxious tendency to linger. She lingers in doorways and foyers and on patios and in the shade of trees. I never know why. She doesn’t seem to do it around Virginia, though they see each other very little.

My stepmother is always hovering around my room or joining while I study or doting on me with things I could have gotten myself. During a party Father held for some potential business partners, she made the rounds quickly. After that, she spent the rest of the night in the corner with me. She wanted to know what my _hobbies_ were. I have a feeling Father put her up to something, though I can never be sure. It’s better to imagine Father has her keeping tabs on me, because the only viable alternative is she’s doing all of this out of pity. I do not need her pity.

* * *

She slides the paper back to me, her neat handwriting carefully deconstructing within minutes what I have worked on for weeks. It took hours each day to mold all the intricacies and dead ends and nuances into the puzzle. But she takes one look at it and it’s done in fifteen minutes. I don’t know what I’m doing _wrong_ . There has to be something I’m missing, some vital attribute I’m lacking. I’ve been working so gorydamn hard, and for what? For all my trials to result in this weak, subpar _riddle_ she could probably solve with her eyes closed.

Still, Virginia beams at me. She compliments my work as if we are equals. A fact easily disproven by the evidence on the table between us. I know she’s humoring me, throwing her utterly inept brother a bone. I hate it, and I almost hate her for it. She should be honest with me, not pander to my weaknesses as if I am too fragile to hear the truth.

I hold my tongue and nod along—careful, polite. As I reach down to the portfolio at my feet, she grabs my wrist. Her hands are tanned from her five years of living in South Pacifica with the Telemanuses. I look anemic in comparison.

“Let’s go outside and do something _interesting_ ,” She blurts out, then laughs. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. This is fascinating, but I don’t think I’ve seen you in the sun since Mother’s death. I know we don’t see each other . . . ever, really, but still.”

I don’t know how to answer that. The mention of our mother dredges up old memories. I try to close my mind off from the grief. _Show no weakness._

She sinks back into the memories easily, with the calm confidence of someone who knows they can pull themself out when they need to. “I still think about that day sometimes.”

I nod, staring down at the engravings in the table.

“It’s . . .” She gestures vaguely, trying to summon the right words. “It’s horrible, what happened. I would have loved to have a sister.”

I nearly bite through my tongue. “ _What?_ ” I choke out. Virginia squints at me, confused.

“Mother . . .” She starts slowly as if talking to a child or stray animal, “she killed herself.”

“I know that,” I bite back. Even if Father won’t admit it, it’s true.

“Do you know why?” She glances around the empty library, lowering her voice. A bad taste grows in the back of my throat, clawing up my molars. Our mother’s face resurfaces in my mind, blurred with time.

“Not fully,” I admit, feeling and hating the heat rising to my face. I try to keep my voice steady. “There were . . . there was something Father said to me. He—I was so young, I don’t know if I remember correctly . . .” I do. In stark detail, his words come back to me. Virginia watches from across the table, intent, patient. My vision swims and for a moment I see the resemblance between her and Mother that tortured Father for years.

_Do not cry_.

“He said,” I start, letting the words tumble out,” he said . . . it was me, that my birth made her weaker and less than she was.”

Virginia outright winces, shifting in her seat. “He _said_ that to you?”

“In a way,” I say, without crying. It doesn’t make me feel any better. It’s bleak, like my mind is fit to overflow and I’m leaving it to grow mold.

She thinks over my words, cringes once more, and leans forward. She puts her hands in mine, fingers warm in contrast. The physical touch makes me nauseated. It’s mawkish, cloying— _alien_. I am not deserving of this.

“He shouldn’t have said that to you,” She tells me severely, “because that is a horrid thing to tell a child, and he was wrong.”

I ask her what she means by that.

Our mother had a miscarriage. As she explains, a part of me leaves. I mourn this new tortured version of my mother, my lost sister, and the bit of myself that had been convinced he killed his own mom.

* * *

Reflecting on the echoing loneliness of an empty house.

I should be relieved to be free of Father’s fawning over Leto or Pliny’s incessant whining, but I am only confronted by a grim question. Is this my future? This empty home? I don’t have any friends—not a single person I am close to.

For the longest time, I had excuses. I was too busy, or Father didn’t let me. Though now I think about it, the only constant is me. It makes logical sense: throughout my life, _I_ am the one factor that has not changed as I gained and lost friends. If they could even be called that. They were all terse acquaintanceships with little substance. All with different people, the only constant was me. I am the problem.

It doesn’t hurt like it used to. When I was younger it was a painful ache settling in my ribs seeing other children play while I was locked inside. Now it is simply the way of things.

The Institute entrance exam is coming up soon. I see Virginia less—I see _other people_ less. All I do is study, which isn’t much of a change from my usual slog of a routine. I doubt I even need it since I’ve been doing this for seemingly my entire life. My stepmother has been hovering less, but it’s only to argue with Father. A hopeless endeavor. He didn’t become the ArchGovernor of Mars through compromise.

It’s about the Institute, I know that much. It is also about me, which normally I would be ecstatic to hear my father talking about me. But if it’s about my time in the Institute, I suspect this will be another circumstance in which his ambitions trump my autonomy.

But no one argues now. My stepmother is out on an errand while Father makes some media appearance for the HC news circuit. He brought Leto and Pliny with him. I didn’t catch the details but it sounded like a public execution. He doesn’t even bother bringing his own son.

Best to leave the family disgrace behind, I suppose.

The Institute is an opportunity. I will have a chance to make something of myself. A chance to prove that Father has not broken me, that I am worthy of his pride. Though I worry about the other students. Not of their merit, but of how I will integrate. I have spent so much time alone, what if I am ill-adjusted to people like me? Do I even know how to talk to someone else my age? I have waited for this for years. I hang on to this because it is all I have, but what if _I_ ruin it for myself?

What if I enter the Institute and crack like Father promised me I always would?

* * *

It is dark. I am starving.

No one is coming to save us. Not Father, not the Proctors, no one. My housemates do not blame me for what I had to do. They knew it was necessary, but now they look to me—their Premier—for answers. In this dark, desperate place, there is only one answer. I doubt they will like it, but we do not have any other choice. We sacrifice and survive, or starve to death in this mountain. That will not be my legacy.

There is someone else in here with me. She is possessive and drifts to wherever there is power. I remember her voice from before the dark and the starvation. She was quiet, with unkind eyes and long, spidery limbs. Here, she is my conscience. She knows my intentions and has immense faith in me. I don’t even know if I will survive to next month and she has _faith_ in me. She could be useful if we make it out of here.

They told us to survive, so I will. I will win and Father will have no choice but to acknowledge me. At the very least it would show him that I am of _value_.

* * *

If I think about it too long it makes my stomach roll.

All this time. I’ve been searching and wondering and barking up trees and the smoking gun falls into my lap. I wanted an easy way to get rid of the Sons of Ares and I ended up with the information to unravel the biggest conspiracy my generation has ever seen.

It seems so obvious now. All the pieces slide together. The odd name, the strange mannerisms, the headstrong nature. How come I didn’t see it before? There was always something off, something lurking beneath the surface. Never would I have suspected _this_.

A Red. In the Institute, in the Academy, as a lancer of _my house_ , in bed with my sister. It is disgusting and horribly ironic. Father wanted me gone so badly he replaced me with a carved Red. There’s no way he could have known, but it fits so perfectly in line with everything else in my life. 

He made me cut off my hand. I was bested and broken by a _Red_.

Does anyone else know?

_Does Virginia know?_

No. She wouldn’t keep that secret. She’s smart enough to know better. She would not.

Then what of his cadre of loyal Golds? Are they disillusioned or brainwashed enough to follow a Red terrorist? Willingly? It would only make them more dangerous than they are now. But there’s no way a Red could amass such a large network of Golds. He must be keeping them in the dark.

Fitchner knows, that is for certain. Betraying his own, and for what? I will not even entertain the notion of understanding either of them. Though what I do understand, intensely and clearly, is that this will not go unnoticed or unpunished. I finally have what I need to rip the pedestal out from under him. This will only end one way: the way it must.

* * *

A graveyard yawns out below. Grass watered with the blood of tyrants, marble stained with the viscera of traitors. Columns left dented or crumbling, trees rendered into smoking husks, expensive clothing and jewelry shredded and abandoned. The air smells of death and engine exhaust. I have never felt more alive in my twenty years of toiling under an unforgiving sun.

This is control.

That nebulous thing I have sought after my whole life. Here it is now, within my grasp. It feels finally as if all my suffering was for _something_. That something is Father alone and cold among the dead. That something is Ares’ head in a box. That something is Darrow at my feet, wings clipped.

This is a turning point. I feel it in the kicking of the wind, the adrenaline thick in my blood, the gore on my shoes. I will get what I deserve, what I have been working towards endlessly, what I am _owed._

Father thought I wasn’t deserving of control, that I was less than Gold. Because of his hold on me, I bought into that lie for such a long time. I spent the whole of my life striving for his affection. He spent his telling me I was not worth it. Every moment of my miserable childhood was devoted to _him_ and he gave me nothing in return. I am rid of him now.

Mars stretches out below. After today it seems endless, rich with opportunity.

Mars is _mine_.

* * *

It doesn’t feel any better at the top. In fact, I feel worse. Before all of this, people were at least honest with me—as honest as you get in the Society. Now I am revered, feared, even. It would be nice if it weren’t so gorydamn lonely.

Peerless now by process of elimination.

I’ve been working for this my entire life, but it’s just so slagging bleak. I’ve hit a plateau. Nothing to fight for, nothing to strive towards. It’s mind-numbingly depressing. All I know now is the weight of bodies in my wake and the echoing, isolating silence that is my future.

That is not to say I am physically alone, which, under these circumstances, is unfortunate. I have the Boneriders, odious and dogmatic as they are. Tactically, they are indispensable. Murder, tracking, torture—it all comes naturally to them. It is the only thing they are good at. They follow me for the power I represent, not who I _am_. I give them opportunities to maim and gore to their corrupted hearts’ delight and make them feel important for “serving the ArchGovernor.”

The Citadel in Attica is full of life and movement, all because of me. Ironically it makes me feel small in comparison. None of these people I am truly close to. Just a fortress full of unincorporated cogs. It feels emptier now missing Darrow. Antonia’s sister does not matter, but he does. He is the one tenacious creature I cannot escape. As much as I despise him, he took a piece of me when he left. We are tied together, intrinsically, eternally.

The door behind me opens and I shut off my brain because surely it is Lilath, come to drool at me over her latest kill. “ _For you,_ ” she always says. I detest her blind devotion, but she is my proverbial right hand. I can’t afford to part with someone that loyal, so I give her the praise she seeks.

Clawed fingers dance over my shoulders and up my neck. I fight the urge to flinch. Not Lilath.

Antonia au Severus-Julii purrs baseless compliments in my ear, musk and rose petal perfume wafting up from her smooth, unblemished skin. She is a pretty face with an influential family, a dark stain on her soul, and nothing more. She thinks the same of me. Yet where that sentiment summarizes my feelings for her, it is the mere springboard of hers for me.

When it started I was willing to fall for her. We have both been slighted by our own blood and possess enough ambition to fill a room. Both cunning and ruthless with insatiable self-interest. I _wanted_ to be with her. I wanted this woman who was so utterly infatuated with me to be my salvation, someone to guide me when I need it, truly listen when I speak, and live at my side as an equal. But I couldn’t bring myself to love her. I see her as nothing but a fiscal ally and a warm body. Not that that is entirely unwanted.

I suspect she might be slowly coming to understand my true feelings for her. Though she’s still stuck in the throes of denial. It is only a matter of time before she, like everyone else in my life, abandons me. The worst part is that I can’t find it within me to care. She is all hands and whispered promises. I dislike her attention so I deliver the bad news.

She withdraws her fingers and comes around to sit on my desk. “Where?” She asks, face pinched with disdain, “I didn’t hear of any crash in local air, and I’ve been watching the sky since that little show in the Hollows. The mines, too.”

“Neither. Aja and Cassius’ last known location was over Mars’ South pole.”

Her expression sours even more. “You think they were shot down over the Ice intentionally.”

“It is a possibility.”

Antonia mulls this over for a moment, shrugs, and slides her long legs off the table. “I’ll see what I can find out,” She says with a parting wink, leaving the room. I wish even a small part of me missed her.

It’s a curse, wanting love so badly and not being able to find it. All these loyal killers in my midst willing to throw their lives on the line for me and I couldn’t find a single one I like. They are all _useful_ , but none of them make me feel like a whole person. I am hollowed, unfulfilled by work, by power, by this dreadfully familiar routine I’ve scraped together for myself. I have everything I’ve ever wanted yet I can’t help but wonder if this is all there is. This screaming, clawing void in my chest, rotting me from the inside out. _This is not enough._

There is one other option. Up.

Controlling Mars does not have to be the end of this. The thought alone scratches some deep, compulsive itch. I could have the Solar System.

* * *

Lilath Interlude: Contingency

Lilath doesn’t pace. She doesn’t chew her fingernails or fret with her clothes or pick at her skin. She just sits and seethes. This is a horrible idea. What’s worse is it is the only one that will work. He’s right because when has he been wrong? But he’s also right about this being a massive risk.

It risks _everything_ . More importantly, it risks _his life_. She understands, logistically, why she isn’t to go to Dragon’s Maw with him. It still bothers her. It wouldn’t eliminate the danger, but with her at his side the whole time, they would have a much better chance of getting out of this alive.

It feels like the Institute all over again, stuck between a rock and a hard place. But this time things will be different. They have to be, with the immense amount of nuclear firepower, but also because this is the plan that will change the course of history.

His footsteps sound down the stairs. Lilath stands to greet him as he enters. “My liege,” She says, bowing her head. He brushes through the sparse room, shoes echoing off the bleak tile and low ceiling. So far down in the bowels of the Attica Citadel, the lights have a hard time staying on. The dim hollows out his already exhausted features. He’s been preparing for this longer than Lilath has known about it. That fact only bothers her a little.

“There is something I haven’t told you yet.”

That bothers her a little more. Does he not trust her? Even now?

He takes the datapad off his wrist and connects it to a series of monitors clustered on a desk at the far wall. “I didn’t know if this would work, but it’s nearly finished.” He turns back to her, beaming. _Really_ beaming. That smile eases the tension from her shoulders and makes her stomach flutter. “All I need is you.”

Those words stir something deep inside. She steps forward, joining him at the desk. A display flickers over the screens, packed with information. Text scrolls down several monitors. Lilath picks up only snippets. “ _Cloning vector needed,” “adjust timescale as necessary,”_ and _“recommendations from the Master Carver include . . .”_ Her head spins trying to keep up with it all.

“Lune won’t go down without a fight,” He says with a smug grin.

“I know this. That is why it’s so dangerous.” Given the context, his confidence seems utterly misplaced. “You could die.” In a smaller voice, she adds, “The Sovereign could have you _executed_.”

He tilts his head, “That is true, yes. There are dozens of other ways it could go wrong, as well. I will be on Luna, there is a chance I could get caught in one of the blasts.”

Lilath shifts uncomfortably. “If it comes to that.”

“ _Exactly_.” His eyes glint with a renewed intensity. “Which is why I have come up with a contingency plan: to cheat death.” With a button press, all the information on the screens coalesces into something readable. The monitors spill green light over his face. His smile widens as Lilath reads, the realization dawning on her.

“I call it the Emperor,” He says, coming around behind her, putting his lone hand on the small of her back.

Lilath’s heart misses a beat. “It is beautiful.”

* * *

I have survived worse, I rationalize to myself. I will push through this.

Though as I lie on the stone floor warmed by blood, a growing dread eats at me. All I see is my father’s face and all the times he told me I would fail. Was he right? Is this the failure I was promised all my life? Is this why he never let me be his son? Because I was always destined to end right here, dying, my goal just barely out of reach?

Failure must be in my blood. Parents dead, Claudius dead, Virginia brainwashed by the Rising. And me, swallowing mouthfuls of my own blood, lying on my back in a slaughterhouse, listening to the Rising pull apart a plan that took months to conceive. Some part of my blood-deprived brain finds it poetic it is Darrow and not anyone else watching me die. This was always how it would end.

That is not to say that I am unprepared. I did not waste months on this just to let it fall apart at the seams in the event of something so simple as _death_. The Void may take me, but it will not have the Jackal. I will be Sovereign. I will get my revenge. In this life or the next.

Then they will all kneel.

**Author's Note:**

> idk HOW this fic happened I don't like Adrius at all but it was fun to write. Still hate him though


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